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Introduction:
India has once again asked Pakistan to take credible and irreversible steps to end its state-sponsored terrorism and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure in its territories. The Permanent Mission of India at the UN hit out against Pakistan while exercising its right of reply at the 48th session of UNHRC. Last week India responded to the Pakistan Prime Minister’s address at the UNGA saying that Islamabad has an established history of actively supporting terrorists. In a scathing indictment, India called Pakistan an arsonist disguised as a firefighter. According to the latest report of Congressional Research Service, Pakistan is home to at least 12 groups designated as foreign terrorist organisations by the US. Five of them are India-focused like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. The CRS report also says that Islamabad is yet to take decisive action against the India and Afghanistan-focused terrorists. In fact, Pakistan is languishing in the grey list of Paris-based inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force due to strategic deficiencies on its part in countering money laundering and terror financing.
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism
- Pakistan has been accused by neighbouring countries India, Afghanistan and Iran and other nations, such as the United States the United Kingdom, and France of involvement in terrorist activities in the region and beyond.
- Money is transferred to terror organization via Pakistan army.
- Pakistan’s tribal region along its border with Afghanistan has been described as a safe haven for terrorists by western media and the United States Defense Secretary. According to an analysis published, Pakistan was, “with the possible exception of Iran, perhaps the world’s most active sponsor of terrorist groups… aiding these groups that pose a direct threat to the United States.
- Pakistan’s active participation has caused thousands of deaths in the region; all these years Pakistan has been supportive to several terrorist groups despite several stern warnings from the international community
- The government of Pakistan has been accused of aiding terrorist organisations operating on their soil who have attacked neighbouring India.
- Pakistan denies all allegations, stating that these acts are committed by non-state actors
- Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has admitted that Pakistan supported and trained terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in 1990s to carry out militancy in Kashmir From 1979 Pakistan was in favour of religious militancy
- Many organizations change names and set up other organization to frame that Pakistan is looking into it.
Terror Financing:
- The financing of terrorism involves providing finance or financial support to individual terrorists or non-state actors.
- Some countries maintain a list of terrorist organizations and have money laundering laws, which are also used to combat providing finance for those organizations.
The importance of combating terrorist financing:
- Terrorists need money and other assets, for weapons but also training, travel and accommodation to plan and execute their attacks and develop as an organisation.
- Disrupting and preventing these terrorism-related financial flows and transactions is one of the most effective ways to fight terrorism.
- Not only can it prevent future attacks by disrupting their material support, the footprints of their purchases, withdrawals and other financial transactions can provide valuable information for ongoing investigations.
- Countering terrorism financing is therefore an essential part of the global fight against terror threat.
- As terrorists and terrorist groups continue to raise money with use of various means, countries must make it a priority to understand the risks they face from terrorist financing and develop policy responses to all aspects of it
Why did FATF decide to place Pakistan on its watch list?
- Pakistan had been on the same list from 2012 to 2015.
- The decision is overdue, given Pakistan’s blatant violation of its obligations to crack down on groups banned by the Security Council 1267 sanctions committee that monitors groups affiliated to the Taliban such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Haqqani network.
- Their leaders like Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar continue to hold public rallies and freely garner support and donations.
- Both the LeT and JeM, continue to praise and claim credit for terror attacks in India. They have grown their bases in Pakistan, with fortress-like headquarters in Muridke and Bahawalpur that the authorities turn a blind eye to.
- By doing this, successive Pakistani governments shown disregard for the outcry against terrorism worldwide.
- One violation was a Pakistani court’s bail to Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, LeT operational commander and a key planner of the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
- Under the 1267 sanctions ruling, banned entities can get no funds, yet Lakhvi received the bail amount, and the authorities have since lost track of him.
What is UNSC resolution 1267?
- UNSC resolution 1267 was adopted in 1999.
- Under this, the UNSC designated Osama bin Laden and associates as terrorists. It also established a sanctions regime to cover individuals and entities associated with Al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden and Taliban wherever located.
- Since US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the sanctions have been applied to individuals and organizations in all parts of the world.
How it helps India to deal with cross border terrorism:
- Recent proposal that Pakistan will put back in the list could affect Pakistan’s credit rating. This will adversely impact its ability to raise loans from major international financial institutions to service existing debt. This will become even more difficult as compared with the previous listing, given the adversarial relationship with the US and the latter’s influence in major financial institutions. So Pakistan will not have adequate resources to fund terrorism
- The decisions of the United Nations Financial Action Task Force (FATF)are about using the threat of economic punishment to move Pakistan away from funding terrorists operating against Afghanistan and India
- Being on the grey list would mean that Pakistan’s transactions are closely monitored. This would further cripple the country’s economy as companies across the world would hesitate from doing business with Pakistan. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank too would avoid giving loans to Pakistan.
- India can now work with multilateral funder institutions to work outvhow Pakistan is channeling money to terrorism.
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